Hasta La Ideas

Here are the latest images of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners’ extension to the British Museum in London, set to complete early next year.

Currently under construction in the north-west corner of the British Museum‘s Bloomsbury quadrangle, the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre will provide new galleries, storage facilites and conservation studios within a nine-storey structure conceived as a cluster of pavilions.

Referencing both the nineteenth and twentieth century architecture of the museum, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners designed a steel-framed building clad with a mixture of stone and glass. The height of the roof will align with the eaves of the existing building, while three of the storeys are to be buried underground.

The Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery will occupy the ground floor of the new building and will be accessed via the north side of the Norman Foster-designed Great Court. The column-free rectangular gallery will feature a large door to allow access for larger exhibits, as well as a series of floor-to-ceiling windows that can be easily screened to protect light-sensitive objects. The space could also be subdivided to house smaller exhibitions.

Other floors of the building will be dedicated to conservation of the museum’s collection. The uppermost floor will contain top-lit studios for working with smaller artefacts, such as metal, glass or ceramic objects, while additional laboratories and offices will surround a two-storey atrium in the lower levels of the building and will be used for examining larger objects.

The three basement floors will function as a storage and lending hub for over 200,000 items. Each floor will contain a study room, plus a 16-metre truck lift will allow items to be transported in and out of the building.

“The World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre represents a vitally important combination of a purpose-built exhibition gallery and a celebration of the amazing behind-the-scenes activities,” said architect Graham Stirk. “These facilities will be contained in a bespoke twenty-first century building that provides the next stage of the museum’s evolution.”

The World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre will complete in March 2014 and the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery is scheduled to open with an exhibition dedicated to the Vikings.

London firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) is led by Richard Rogers in partnership with Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour. Other recent projects by the firm in London include the NEO Bankside apartment blocks beside the Tate Modern art gallery and a fabric walkway over the roof of the O2 Arena. See more architecture by RSHP on Dezeen.

Here’s an update from the British Museum:

British Museum celebrates progress on the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre development

With less than a year to go until the first exhibition opens in the new exhibitions gallery, the British Museum today reveals the extent of progress on the construction of its new capital project, the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre (WCEC). Designed by Rogers, Stirk, Harbour + Partners (RSHP) and constructed by Mace, the new Centre will cement the British Museum’s reputation as a world leader in the exhibition, conservation, examination and analysis of cultural objects from across the globe. The WCEC will enable the Museum to build on current successes, to store, conserve, study and display the collection for the future.

Located in the north-west corner of the Museum’s Bloomsbury estate, the WCEC is one of the largest redevelopment projects in the Museum’s 260 year history. The Centre will provide a new public exhibitions gallery, state-of-the-art laboratories and studios, world class stores for the collection, as well as facilities to support an extensive UK and international loan programme. This will rationalise and greatly improve the Museum’s operations on-site, and modernise facilities ‘behind the scenes’. These will allow the Museum to extend support to our UK and International partners in terms of increasing capacity for staff training and joint projects.

The building consists of five pavilions (one of which is sunk into the ground) and the design is sensitive to the British Museum’s existing architecture, connecting to the historic building whilst maintaining its own identity. The exhibitions gallery is due to open in early March 2014 with a new exhibition devoted to the Vikings (supported by BP). It is anticipated the conservation studios, science laboratories, loans hub and stores will be fitted out and occupied by summer 2014.

The total cost of the project is £135 million. The Linbury Trust, established by John Sainsbury (Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover KG), and the Monument Trust, established by Simon Sainsbury have together committed £25 million towards the project, one of the largest gifts to the arts in the UK in recent decades, which will be used to fund the exhibition gallery. The Heritage Lottery Fund has committed £10 million towards the project. Other significant benefactors include the Wolfson Foundation, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the family of Constantine Leventis, the Clothworkers’ Foundation, the Fidelity U.K. Foundation, Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement, the Band Trust and others as well as continued support from the Department for Culture Media and Sport (worth £22.5 million over 4 years). A fundraising campaign from the British Museum Members is underway.

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by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners appeared first on Dezeen.

Chinese architecture studio Neri&Hu sliced away the rear wall and replaced it with glass for this renovation of a 1930s townhouse in Shanghai.

The three-storey building is located in the Tianzifang district of the Chinese city, where it originally functioned as a house for a single family. Neri&Hu‘s redesign converts the building into three divisible apartments, each with a combined living and dining room at the back and a bedroom at the front.

A bulky metal staircase replaces the old timber steps that previously connected the floors. Sandblasted glass (completed after photography) separates the stairway from the corridor of each apartment so that residents can see the outlines of neighbours passing by.

A 45-degree skylight brings daylight into the stairwell, while a shared laundry room and terrace are positioned at the top.

“The blurring of both the private and the public acts as the central concept that binds the split level together, and at the same time, bring life to the middle and darkest portion of the house,” says Neri&Hu.

The building is arranged over split levels, so the architects have also inserted a second set of stairs within two of the apartments. Unlike the main staircase, both are constructed from timber to match the flooring.

Bathrooms stretch along the southern side of each apartment and are enclosed behind another layer of sandblasted glass. Showers feature a west-facing window, offering a view down into the shared lobby below.

New windows were added to both the front and rear elevations, while the rest of the exterior has been coated in black paint. “The colour black was selected to make the building disappear,” add the architects.

Although the building was designed for three separate tenants, it is currently being used as one large house.

Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu have worked on a number of renovation projects in Shanghai, where their studio is also located. Past projects include a design gallery in a former colonial police station and a hotel in a disused army headquarters building, which was the overall winner at the inaugural Inside awards in 2011.

Dezeen interviewed the architects in November, when they told us that Chinese architects need to develop their own design manifesto to stem the tide of “half-assed” building projects in the country. See more stories about Neri&Hu on Dezeen.

See more recent architecture in China, including an asterisk-shaped restaurant and winery near Beijing.

Photography is by Pedro Pegenaute.

Here’s a project description from Neri&Hu:

Rethinking the Split House

The magical lane houses, which were once the dominant fabric that made urban Shanghai the intoxicating place that it was in the 1930s, are now slowly being demolished, taken over by high-density developments all over the city. Neri&Hu was commissioned to reconstruct a dilapidated lane house left with almost nothing except its glorious shell in the historic and artistic Tianzifang area in Shanghai, and the mission was to transform it into three separate apartment units.

Neri&Hu’s strategy was to rethink the typology of the lane house – keeping the split level formation, a typical trait to lane houses in this city, and add spatial interest through new insertions and skylights to accentuate the architectural integrity of such a typology, contemporising it for today’s lifestyle.

Historically the lane houses are separated with two distinct spaces – a longer and often rectangular space with a smaller room half a level above that creates a split section connected by a winding stairway in between. These lane houses which were often occupied by single families during the turn of the century, have changed over the course of the city’s economic history. They are now typically occupied by three or more families, sharing the public staircase and landings, so that neighbours living on different levels or rooms have a chance to interact as they move in and out of their personal units.

To keep the spirit of this typology alive, a new continuous metal stair was inserted to replace the old decaying wooden stair that was not to code. It also serves to act both as a vertical connection to the three levels and at the same time a lock for the frontal room and room half a level above to be intact in its configuration. To keep these spaces pure and rigorous, all toilets were inserted into the stair spaces. The bathrooms, conceivably the most intimate spaces of each apartment, are inserted next to the most public stairway separated only with a sandblasted glass divider. Above this stairway, a clearstory skylight was added to bring light to the darkest space and also to the frontal room, the room half a level above, and the staircase space itself. The blurring of both the private and the public acts as the central concept that binds the split level together, and at the same time, bring life to the middle and darkest portion of the lane house.

Architecturally, the decorative elements added over the last 60 years were stripped off, and large openings were created on the frontal section to improve light qualities to the public spaces of each apartment. The colour black was selected to make the building “disappear”, in hoping that one would experience the split-section connected by a public stairway that is so vital to Shanghai’s urban life in the 30s. By capturing the spirit of the historic past and making new abstract insertions to meet modern needs, Neri&Hu infused life into a lane house in a neighborhood whose original fabric is dissolving too fast, too soon.

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by Neri&Hu appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Italian architects Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas have won a competition to transform the central railway area of Bari, a city in southern Italy, with a proposal to build a three-kilometre-long elevated park over the track.

The winning design, a collaboration between Fuksas and architect Jordi Henrich I Monràs, stretches over an area of 78 hectares and is centred around a large park that will pass over the railway and offer promenade views over the city and the sea.

The project will also provide Bari with a new cultural centre spread across the former Rossani barracks. Existing buildings will be restored and turned into a public library, an exhibition space, municipal offices and workshops for artists, actors and academics.

A new elliptical building with a wood facade will house a 1000-capacity auditorium adaptable to concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and exhibitions, while underground parking will be provided on the northern edge of the park near the railway station.

In the south-west corner of the park, alongside Bari’s existing Auditorium Nino Rota, the architects propose to enlarge the city’s music conservatory with a new auditorium and teaching rooms as well as an area for outdoor concerts.

Last month the Fuksas duo won a competition for the Moscow Polytechnic Museum and Educational Centre with a design consisting of four copper-clad elements, while in January they completed a new building for the National Archives of France – see all architecture by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas.

In 2011, a two-and-a-half mile-long elevated park called The High Line opened on abandoned railway along 22 blocks of downtown Manhattan, while last year Danish architects BIG completed a project to place a 750-metre-long carpet of grass and rubber through Copenhagen – see all parks and gardens.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

International competition for the “Baricentrale railway area”, Italy, won by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas + Jordi Henrich I Monràs

Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas along with Jordi Henrich I Monràs have won the international competition for the design of the railway area “Baricentrale”.

The international competition launched by the Municipality of Bari, aimed to promote the transformation of the city, using the reorganisation of the railway area which has long acted as a rift that cuts through the city, as the starting point for its transformation. The site of the project stretches over an area of 78 hectares which is divided into 7 segments.

The decision of the jury in choosing the winning design team came about on the basis of the following main reasons: the ability to fully respond with consistency and quality to the primal need of the city, that of reconnecting the two “sides” of the railway area which have been split apart for so long; the integration of buildings situated on the two sides, through the realisation of a large elevated park; the introduction of an increase of the current building density, balanced and well distributed between the different compartments; the proposal having a high level of environmental sustainability as its main characteristic.

The project signed by Studio Fuksas desires to solve the issue of the fracture of the city of Bari in a radical way through the design of a large city park with promenade views of the city and the sea, which acts as the connective tissue of the entire project. Without burying the rail track, the project aims at the rebirth of a strongly degraded area and pass through a large elevated park, 3 km long with an east-west bike path. A big lung which will double the amount of green for inhabitants, from the current 2.7 m to 5.1 m ab / ab.

The sub-sector of the barrack Rossani, composed of 5 buildings has been assigned an important role. It will become the cultural centre of the city of Bari with spaces for social gatherings in a green area. Existing buildings will be restored without altering the architectural shape. Their function will be related to culture and arts. The building positioned at the center of the park (1400 square meters) will host the municipal offices. The building D will host workshops for artists and fellows of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bari; the building E (2930 sqm) will become the city’s public library with specialized sections devoted to the visual arts, theater, music and architecture, the building F (2,184 sqm) is transformed into a huge exhibition space for temporary exhibitions and will support the educational activities of the Academy of Fine Arts. The building H (2890 square meters) will host residencies for artists, actors, contract professors, scholars and students of the academy linked to European programs of cultural exchange. The ground floor will also house a café open to the public and immersed in the park. It will include the construction of an underground parking with 800 seats, located in the northern edge of the Park Rossani near the new Central Station.

At the centre of the regular structure of the barrack will arise the auditorium / performance centre with a capacity of about 1,000 seats. The architectural shape of the elliptical performance center generates a volume from soft geometries that deliberately contrasts with the rigidity of existing buildings. A multi-purpose building that can accommodate a variety of events and activities such as concerts, theater, conferences, exhibitions and film screenings. Common areas, the cafeteria and the foyer are fully glazed in order to create a relationship of continuity between inside and outside. The wood will be the outer skin of the structure of the facade of the building in order to be in harmony with the park and vegetation.

The city of music will be built at the south-west of the park. The function is already defined by the presence of the Auditorium Nino Rota. The existing structure also plays a supporting role at the Conservatory Niccolo Piccinni. The project proposes to shape a genuine city of music providing for the enlargement of about 2000 square meters of the conservatory with a new building that will house a 400-seat auditorium and music school. Furthermore it is also planned to build an area for outdoor concerts with 400 seats. The park of music because of the new structure planned by the master plan is easily accessible from the city centre.

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central railway area of Bari, Italy appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Reykjavik, Iceland, by Henning Larsen Architects and artist Olafur Eliasson has won this year’s European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture, the Mies van der Rohe Award.

The crystalline Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre by Henning Larsen Architects and Olafur Eliasson with local practice Batteríið Architects beat four other projects on the Mies van der Rohe Award 2013 shortlist to scoop the €60,000 prize.

The Emerging Architect Special Mention award was given to María Langarita and Víctor Navarro for the Red Bull Music Academy, where they took over a warehouse and filled it with makeshift huts, providing individual studios for 60 musicians alongside a lecture hall, recording studio and staff offices.

The award ceremony will take place on 6 June at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona, Spain.

Opened to the public on 4 May 2011, the Harpa Concert Hall is clad in panes of clear and colour-coated glass on a faceted steel framework, scattering glittering reflections of the surrounding harbour and sky. Read more and and check out a full set of images of the Harpa Concert Hall in our earlier story.

The biennial Mies van der Rohe Award is the most prestigious accolade in European architecture and is awarded to the best building completed in the last two years by a European architect.

The four other projects on this year’s shortlist were the Superkilen park by BIG in Denmark, Metropol Parasol by J. Mayer H. in Spain, a retirement home by Aires Mateus Arquitectos in Portugal and a Market Hall by Robbrecht en Daem architecten and Marie-José Van Hee architecten in Belgium. See all the projects shortlisted for the Mies van der Rohe award 2013.

Previous winners include David Chipperfield for the Neues Museum in Berlin in 2011 and Snøhetta for the Norwegian Opera & Ballet in Oslo in 2009. See all our stories about the Mies van der Rohe Award.

The prize is organised by the European Commission and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, which was established in 1983 with the initial purpose of reconstructing the iconic pavilion designed by Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition, and now organises exhibitions and events promoting the study of Modern architecture and Mies van der Rohe’s work.

This year’s winning firm was founded in Denmark in 1959 by its namesake Henning Larsen, who last year was among the five laureates of the Praemium Imperiale arts prize awarded by the Japan Art Association. Henning Larsen Architects’ recent projects include plans for a Danish headquarters for software giant Microsoft and a proposed complex of public and leisure buildings in Trondheim, Norway.

Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has worked on several other architectural projects throughout his career, including a fort-like headquarters for a Danish investment company and a temporary pavilion outside London’s Serpentine Gallery, which he designed with architect Kjetil Thorsen of Snøhetta in 2007.

More about the Mies van der Rohe Award »
More about architecture by Henning Larsen »
More about Olafur Eliasson »

Here’s some more information from the Mies van der Rohe Foundation:

Harpa wins the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2013

Harpa, the Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Iceland, is the winner of the 2013 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award, the European Commission and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation announced today. Designed by Henning Larsen Architects, Batteríið Architects and Studio Olafur Eliasson, the building has helped to transform and revitalise Reykjavik harbour and brought the city and harbour district closer together. The ‘Emerging Architect Special Mention’ award goes to María Langarita and Víctor Navarro for the Nave de Música Matadero (Red Bull Music Academy) in Madrid, Spain. The award ceremony will take place on 7 June at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona, coinciding with the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the prize.

“Architecture is one of the most visible expressions of our contemporary culture. My warmest congratulations go to this year’s winners – indeed, to all of those who made the final shortlist. They have created buildings which are not only of the highest aesthetic and technical quality, but also places which touch our emotions and bring people together. I would also like to thank the Mies van der Rohe Foundation for their excellent collaboration in helping to bring the best of contemporary European architecture to worldwide attention,” said Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth.

Harpa’s crystalline structure was inspired by Icelandic landscapes and traditions. Its dramatic design captures and reflects the light of the city, ocean and sky to thrilling effect.

Peer Teglgaard Jeppesen, from Henning Larsen Architects said: “On behalf of the team I would like to thank the European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe for this award. We are immensely honoured. Harpa is the result of collaborative process that has involved many people and with their efforts, strong commitment and drive Harpa has become a symbol of Iceland’s renewed dynamism.”

Wiel Arets, Chair of the Jury, said: “Harpa has captured the myth of a nation – Iceland – that has consciously acted in favour of a hybrid-cultural building during the middle of the ongoing Great Recession. The iconic and transparent porous ‘quasi brick’ appears as an ever-changing play of coloured light, promoting a dialogue between the city of Reykjavik and the building’s interior life. By giving an identity to a society long known for its sagas, through an interdisciplinary collaboration between Henning Larsen Architects and artist Olafur Eliasson, this project is an important message to the world and to the Icelandic people, fulfilling their long expected dream.”

The Nave de Música Matadero Madrid (Red Bull Music Academy) was built in only two months to host a nomadic annual music festival in an early 20th-century industrial warehouse complex in Madrid. It responded to the technical and acoustic needs of the event, while promoting and enriching artistic encounters between the participating musicians.

Antoni Vives, President of the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, said: “It has been an honour for the city of Barcelona and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation to grant this Prize with the European Commission for the last 25 years: a quarter of a century of the best European architecture. I would like to congratulate the winners of this 13th edition and I would like encourage architects to continue to play their role as catalysts for transforming cities.”

The winners were chosen from 335 submitted works in 37 European countries. Five works were shortlisted for the main award. The other finalists were: Market Hall (Ghent, Belgium by Robbrecht en Daem architecten; Marie-José Van Hee architecten); Superkilen (Copenhagen, Denmark by BIG Bjarke Ingels Group; Topotek1; Superflex); Home for Elderly People (Alcácer do Sal, Portugal by Aires Mateus Arquitectos) and Metropol Parasol (Seville, Spain by J. Mayer H).

The jury members who selected the finalists for 2013 are: Wiel Arets, Chair of the Jury, Principal, Wiel Arets Architects, Maastricht/Dean, College of Architecture, IIT, Chicago; Pedro Gadanho, Curator, Contemporary Architecture, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Antón García-Abril, Principal, Ensamble Studio; Louisa Hutton, Principal, Sauerbruch Hutton Architects, Berlin; Kent Martinussen, CEO, The Danske Arkitekter Center (DAC), Copenhagen; Frédéric Migayrou, Director, Architecture & Design, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Ewa Porebska, Editor-in-Chief, Architektura-murator, Warsaw; Giovanna Carnevali, Secretary of the Jury, Director, Fundació Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona.

About the Mies van der Rohe Award

The architecture sector is at the heart of Europe’s vibrant cultural and creative industries. It directly employs more than half a million people, as well as more than 12 million in the construction sector. Architecture is part of the cultural and creative sectors, which contribute 4.5% to the EU’s GDP.

The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award highlights the contribution of European architects to the development of new ideas and technologies in contemporary urban development. Launched in 1987 and co-funded by the EU Culture Programme and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, the prize is the most prestigious in European architecture. It is awarded every other year to works completed within the previous two years. The winner receives €60 000. This year’s ceremony is the 13th to take place since its launch.

Works nominated for the Prize are put forward by independent experts from all over Europe, as well as by the member associations of the Architects’ Council of Europe, national architects’ associations, and the Advisory Committee for the Prize.

The Prize is named after Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who is regarded as one of the pioneers of 20th century modern architecture. His most celebrated works include the German Pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona Exhibition, Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic, the Seagram Building in New York and the National Gallery in Berlin.

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Mies van der Rohe Award 2013 appeared first on Dezeen.

This asterisk-shaped restaurant and winery at the centre of a lake near Beijing is our second story in the last week about Chinese studio SAKO Architects (+ slideshow).

The timber-clad building was designed by SAKO Architects with different functions in each of its five wings, while a wine cellar occupies the basement.

An entranceway cuts through the first of the five wings. A lobby is located beyond and leads into a central hall with a circular skylight overhead.

A wine showroom and bar are contained in the second wing, while the third contains the dining room of the restaurant. Both of these spaces open out to rectangular terraces, plus one of them projects out across the surface of the lake.

The fourth wing contains a series of private function rooms, divided by brick walls with gaps to let the light through, and the final wing contains the kitchen and staff facilities.

Our other recent story about SAKO Architects featured a doughnut-shaped kindergarten with brightly coloured details.

See more architecture in China, including a museum of wooden sculptures and an art gallery in Beijing with curvy courtyards.

Photography is by Ruijing Photo.

Here’s some more information from SAKO Architects:

Asterisk in Beijing

The project is a building which on a floating island in the lake, with an area of 2,000 sqm. Including ground floor and basement. Wine showroom, restaurant and underground winery are included.

The space separated by five different functional blocks, and setup as one integral building which is direction relative and continuity connected with the central multifunction space.

The respective functions are connected through a space, the large openings in the exterior wall, form the interior and outdoor overall sense. There are five different functional plazas between each block, wedding or wine exhibition and other activities can be held here.

Project Name: ASTERISK in Beijing
Project Location: Beijing, China
Project Type: Architecture

Architect/s: Keiichiro SAKO, Shuhei AOYAMA, Ariyo MOGAMI, Touru IWASA/ SAKO Architects
Lighting Design: Masahide Kakudate Lighting Architect & Associates
Client: Beijing Sheng Lu International Zhuang Park Hotel Management Ltd.

Element: Winery, Restaurant
Size: Site area: 4,800m2
Building area: 2,000m2
Design Period: 2010/05 – 2011/04
Construction Period: 2010/10 – 2012/11

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